North Texas' own Betty Buckley is back on the London Stage after a nearly 20-year absence in the British premiere of Jerry Herman's Dear World. The show isn't getting good notices -- too whimsical even for the Brits -- but Buckley is garnering raves, as usual.

This musical adaptation of Jean Giraudoux's once-classic, now not so popular, The Madwoman of Chaillot won Angela Lansbury her second Tony Award back in 1969. Irving's Lyric Stage did a concert version in 1998 that starred Sally Soldo. The story satirizes big business taking over Paris, stymied by a bunch of oddballs. When the Giraudoux original first came it, it was largely interpreted as a shadowy satire of the Nazi occupation of France.

Nobody has anything bad to say about our Betty -- does any critic, ever? The New York Times reviewer thought her performance was reminiscent of her Tony-winning turn in Cats -- an aging beauty wistful about lost romance. It would be nice to get a cast album out of the production, at least.

What other roles would be good for the still mighty-voiced diva these days? She could probably still carry off the lead in A Little Night Music, don't you thinki?